


The Faces We Bear/Bare

by RemainingQuestions



Series: Vexbo [2]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22563883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemainingQuestions/pseuds/RemainingQuestions
Summary: The consequences to unintended consequences.(i know the pun doesn't work when written BUT I REALLY LIKE THE PUN)
Series: Vexbo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623517
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	The Faces We Bear/Bare

**Author's Note:**

> i know the pun only works when spoken I KNOW

Eventually, the surreality of his dreams breaks through the weight of them. 

He wakes up in bursts. 

Hears voices he half recognises. 

Feels the warmth of a bed below him. 

He keeps his eyes closed though. It’s a comfort even while it’s a discomfort. 

His head is his. Just his. Nothing else pushing or pulling his thoughts. 

His head feels hollow and lonely, and he feels weak. 

“But what-” he doesn’t catch the full sentence of what his friends are saying. Shards of sleep still interspersed in between the awake moments. 

“...see? The crack!” Hm, he was glad he wasn’t part of that conversation. It wasn’t easy to get Scar that upset. 

“We… you never told…” And Grian was there too. Maybe he _should_ be part of this conversation then, as an Architech. 

What had happened? 

Pain stabbed through his head, and he grunted. 

Gentle hands pat his shoulders, “Mumbo… awake?” 

He grunted again, but just because he wanted to go back to sleep this time, not because he hurt. 

“Mumbo?” So many voices. 

He took a breath, sighed, and opened his eyes. Grian and Scar he’d already heard, but there was Iskall too, right next to him. Further away were Cub and Xisuma for some reason. 

“Hey.” Iskall’s voice was soft and gentle, his eyes sad. 

“Hm.” 

“Take it easy Mumbo,” Cub said from where he stood, hands deep in his pockets. “You’ve gone through a lot.” 

“How do you feel?” Iskall said, his voice still so gentle and soft. 

“Uhm,” Mumbo closed his eyes, and let him feel all the aches and pains, and there were a surprising amount of them. “Ugh, like I’ve gone three rounds with five vindicators. I don't…” He shifted in bed as memories started to trickle in, “Vex?” 

He'd put on the mask. Not held it in front of his face like Grian, just put it on. 

Had it been Cub and Scar that came? It had been Vex. He only remembered the faces, masks, smiling at him. 

They tore it off, took it from him, dare to touch! His fingers twisted in his blankets with an alien anger as he remembered what had happened. 

There'd been another, after. Still that power, that thrill, that pure sense of _energy_. But contained. It was contained, instead of it containing him. 

And then… flying, cake? 

He rubbed his temples, a deep ache settling in his brain as shreds of memories trickled in. 

“Take it easy Mumbo.” Cub's voice again, gently matter-of-fact. “This is normal.” 

“Normal?” Grian cried out, “How is any of this-!” He sighed and stepped closer to Mumbo. His voice was gentle, his whole body language softer. “I'm sorry Mumbo. I promise I didn't know. I _swear_ I didn't.” His voice cracks and he looks away. “I didn't know.” 

“Uhm.” Mumbo looked at the concerned faces all around him. “ _What_ didn't you… know?” 

There was a beat of silence, and then Iskall shatters it with his laugh. “Right, you did warn of the memories.” He laughs again, and it breaks the gentle but tense atmosphere in the room.

“I'm glad to see you're okay Mumbo.” X says, his voice clear through his helmet, “I'll just share the happy news with the rest of the server!” 

“I just put a mask on?” Mumbo mumbles, “except… ugh.” 

“The memory issues are totally normal Mumbo, they'll come back to you through the rest of the day.” Scar's voice was soft, but the way he glances at Mumbo's face, down, and up again, was odd. 

Mumbo felt his fingers tangle in the sheets. More emotions and pictures dripped down into his consciousness. “All of them?” 

Scar and Cub nod. “It feels odd right now, but I promise it's normal.” Scar's looking worried despite his comforting words. 

There was a beat of silence, and then Cub steps forward. “I can give a rundown of what happened, if you want.” Why did everyone keep glancing away from his face at first? 

“Yeah, please?” He sits up straighter, slowly regaining his equilibrium. 

“You put on a mask that Grain found, with a crack in it.” Grian closes his mouth with a snap at Cub’s glance. “It took over, unlike the normal ones. Grian realised that something was wrong, so he called us in. We took it off, and replaced it with a normal one, then took you here.” 

The words settle like the truth, even if he doesn’t remember it all. Doesn’t remember it all, yet. “Why did you.” Mumbo blinks as more memories trickle in. Flashes of color and power. Had he ever laughed like that before? “I understand that you had to take it off, but why put another back on?” 

“Yeah, why _did_ you do that?” Grian butts in as Iskall attentively listens. 

“Because -” Cub sighs. 

“Because once you’re Vex, _you are Vex._ ” Scar finishes, his voice heavy. “You put the mask on. There’s no taking it back off, now.” 

Mumbo looks from Scar, his normally vibrant green eyes heavy, to Cub, still with his hands deeply in his pockets, to Grian, fear and determination warring on his face, and to Iskall, whose face was, for once, unreadable. He wanted to deny it. Wanted to say that it clearly was wrong, none of them were wearing a mask now, were they? 

But he could feel the space that the magic had carved out for itself. He could remember, clearly now, the way that magic had flowed in him. Through him. He could even feel the masks in the room with them. The heady thrum coming from Scar, that nearly _shouted_ out at him. “You have it.” There was an energy in his voice that wasn’t his, “you have it.” It didn’t matter if it was his or not, because the hollow was filled by it, no longer so achingly empty. 

“Mumbo…” Scar stepped back. 

Mumbo stepped out of bed, and slapped the hands that tried to stop him swaying away. “Mine! You have mine!” 

“Mumbo.” Iskall’s hand was against his chest, but it was Cub’s voice that he responded to. That the energy inside him responded to. “Sit down.” Mumbo sat. “ _I_ have your mask.” Cub pulled a mask out, shimmering and unique. 

Mumbo reached for it, and it was warm to the touch. It seemed to shift before his eyes, no longer like the one Grian had found. His. This call was soft, gentle. He turned it over, the delicate porcelain pure white on the inside. Instinctively, he moved his hand up, tilted his face down. 

“No.” Cub’s hand was on the mask. “Not now.” Mumbo turned his face back up, eyes pleading. “You’re still feeling off from yesterday. Next time they call, they will call for you, too.” 

Mumbo turned his gaze to the other Vex in the room. “Next time the Vex call, they will call for you too. But not before that.” 

The mask in his hands was still warm. Still made his fingertips tingle. The call from Scar was less personalised, now. More just plainly powerful. 

Next time it would call he would answer. 

Next time it would call for him, too. 


End file.
